Many members of the alumni band say their experiences long ago in Castle Park High School's renowned marching band keep them loving the activity. (John Gibbins / Union-Tribune)

Many members of the alumni band say their experiences long ago in Castle Park High School's renowned marching band keep them loving the activity. (John Gibbins / Union-Tribune)

Even today, high school kids think playing in the marching band is for eggheads and geeks. The cool kids, they say, get into sports.

But when David Lieras and pals Lodivico “Junior” Cacayan and Mike Guda rolled into Chula Vista's Castle Park High School in the mid '80s, the award-winning Trojan Brigade was among the most popular and well-respected school bands in the state.

And the three friends came to it with fire for the music and determination to keep their school's marching crew on top of the hill.

And even though they are long past high school, they've found a way to keep channeling that old marching band fever. They've created an alumni band.

They call it The Pride of the South Bay Reunion Band. It's nonprofit and made up of former marchers who still share the exhilaration of the band experience.

The Pride of the South Bay has 35 members and is one of a handful of similar groups in the county. Minimal dues, donations and fundraisers keep it going.

Representing Chula Vista, the band performs in at least four events around the county each year, including the July 4 parade in Mira Mesa.

Former band enthusiasts “hear about us or see us perform and they get excited,” says David Lieras, 39, a computer technician at Qualcomm. “When we put out the word (on the Internet) that we were starting an alumni band two years ago, we got 150 hits a day.

“We even got people talking smack, like this one guy who said, in an e-mail to friends: 'Hey guys, I just saw Castle Park's alumni band perform – we should form our own alumni band and kick their butt.' ”

In high school, participating in the band “was all about competition and performing well,” David recalls. “The big thing was to win the best band performance of the day in the competition sweepstakes. A first-place finish in your division, as far as everyone in (the Trojan Brigade) was concerned, was nothing to brag about if you didn't walk away with the best-of-show win.

“We just loved playing in the band.”

The hardest part of the alumni operation, David and his friends agree, is “getting everybody together at one time in the same place.”

But making sweet music is certainly not as hard because everyone shares the passion, says David, the father of two. “We sound pretty good.”

“There is no describing the feeling of hearing” all the instruments blend together in a good band performance. “I get goose bumps.”

David's interest in music started at age 5, when he saw Benny Goodman perform in a TV commercial. He played the clarinet in the orchestra and took up trumpet in the high school band.

Lodivico, a 41-year-old father of two and computer technician at Cubic, played trombone in the band and also played violin.

His love for band was sealed when his 27-member crew at Castle Park High won the All Western Band Review in Long Beach and was recognized as the best band in all the Western states in 1982.

Mike Guda was so promising in baseball as a kid that some folks saw him becoming an All-America pick or even someday signing a pro contract.

But his older sister was in the band at Castle Park High. When Mike was 11 or 12, he attended one of her competitions and became totally enthralled.

“They were practicing, and I was sitting right up close to the trombone section,” recalls the 37-year-old father of three, who is also a technician at Qualcomm. “Man, the intensity of the sound just blew me away – there's just no describing the feeling.”

From that moment, he says, he knew he had to be part of the band. And although he played baseball at Castle Park, he gave it up when it interfered with his music.

“You had to be dedicated to band with no other distractions,” Mike declares.

Adds David: “We want to relive some of what we did in (high school) – this is not a career, (but) it's more than a hobby.”